General [ECL] Lorwyn Eclipsed

ravnic

ravnic

I thought about that possibility as well, but it would also make sense to have the black color pairs only since these incarnations seem to represent shadowmoor.
 
ravnic

ravnic

The planeswalker's guide is really worth a read this time imo. Not only is the world building pretty cool, but it also makes me curios on what themes we will get for the set. MaRo has stated on blogatog that "All the Lorwyn creature types are in the set, but some will get more typal support than others" and in the guide merrow, boggarts, elves, kithkin and elementals get the most attention. I assume that only these will be typal limited archetypes this time around, with faeries, giants and scarecrows maybe each getting on lord at rare or something. I'd appreciate that as it would leave some room for other themes. Shadowmoor and eventide weren't about typal themes anyway, so that seems fair.

Because I'm hyped for this set, I'd like to make an early guess for the limited archetypes - a very relevant aspect for us lower powered cubers, as we need cool (un)commons.

{W}{U} Merfolk tempo, maybe with some tap/untap tricks
{U}{B} Flash, certainly with a decent amount of faeries but also with some merrow and elves
{B}{R} Goblin sacrifice aggro
{R}{G} Ramp/Big stuffwith giants and treefolk, but caring about power or mana value
{G}{W} Kithkin GoWide
{W}{B} Artifacts, because colored artifacts are common now and this is where scarecrows would make sense
{B}{G} Elves, maybe tokens or some midrangey variant
{G}{U} Types, a threshold emchanic that wants you to have 5+ types, works with changelings or collecting the weird types
{U}{R} Elementals tempo, maybe with a spells subtheme
{R}{W} Aggro as usual, with kithkin, duergar, noggles and maybe some giants as curve toppers
 
MilesOfficial

MilesOfficial

Great analysis, Ravnic. I think you're on the right track here, but I wanted to take a moment to address this:

ravnic said:
Aggro as usual, with kithkin, duergar, noggles and maybe some giants as curve toppers
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It's still probably correct, since Mark said there'd be 5 supported typal archetypes IIRC. But I am holding on to some (unsubstantiated) hope that it's giants or "go big" instead as the RW theme. I love it when they try to go another direction with that color pair, and Lorehold makes me sad because I feel that its lack of resonance and interest from the audience (and poor performance in retail limited) makes WotC less likely to deviate too far from the usual RW themes.
 
TrainmasterGT

TrainmasterGT

MilesOfficial said:
Great analysis, Ravnic. I think you're on the right track here, but I wanted to take a moment to address this:



It's still probably correct, since Mark said there'd be 5 supported typal archetypes IIRC. But I am holding on to some (unsubstantiated) hope that it's giants or "go big" instead as the RW theme. I love it when they try to go another direction with that color pair, and Lorehold makes me sad because I feel that its lack of resonance and interest from the audience (and poor performance in retail limited) makes WotC less likely to deviate too far from the usual RW themes.
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Lorehold was frustrating, because even though it was supposed to be a "control deck," it was actually spirit aggro bullshit. Not to say that there weren't cards that could go into a more controlling strategy, it's just a lot of the low-rarity creatures and spells lent themselves to an aggro deck that wasn't supposed to be the theme. My guess is that R/W was supposed to be a Flashback deck in early design, and a lot of the synergy cards for the archetype weren't replaced when they punted flashback from STX to Midnight Hunt.
 
Erik Twice

Erik Twice

TrainmasterGT said:
Lorehold was frustrating, because even though it was supposed to be a "control deck," it was actually spirit aggro bullshit. Not to say that there weren't cards that could go into a more controlling strategy, it's just a lot of the low-rarity creatures and spells lent themselves to an aggro deck that wasn't supposed to be the theme. My guess is that R/W was supposed to be a Flashback deck in early design, and a lot of the synergy cards for the archetype weren't replaced when they punted flashback from STX to Midnight Hunt.
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Yep. For me the biggest problem is that all those big RW cards just amounted to nothing. Like sure, you filled the graveyard, you generated recursive card advantage...and then...what? There was nothing that could really use it.

You are probably right about STX/Midnight Hunt, by the way, given the problems both sets have.
 
ravnic

ravnic

Guess I was on the right track regarding the archetypes (and Velrun regarding the Elementals) if Specialist_Elk189 from reddit speaks the truth:

Maro said in the panel that "half the draft archetypes [in lorwyn eclisped] are typal", that "the set is half lorwyn mechanically, half shadowmoor mechanically" and that the fact that the transforming creatures transform into a different mono color is relevant.

Based on the art we've seen in the planeswalkers guide it looks like there's a command card for elementals (UR), goblins (BR), elves (BG), merfolk (WU) and kithkin (GW). Which also lines up with the shocklands that are in the set.

I suspect that UB's archetype won't be faerie typal but something more similar to shadowmoors color-matters stuff. And perhaps those rare hybrid evoke elementals will only be in pairs that don't have a typal theme.
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LadyMapi

LadyMapi

TrainmasterGT said:
Lorehold was frustrating
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It's honestly kinda amazing how Prismari got a better/more interesting graveyard micro-archetype than Lorehold:



And, to add insult to injury, the "reanimate a small creature" option was given to Silverquill Command instead of Lorehold Command despite Silverquill having no thematic connection to reanimating things and "call up the spirits of the long-dead to ask them questions" is Lorehold's whole thing. Seriously, think of how absolutely badass Lorehold Command would be if the "create a 3/2 spirit" option was "return target creature with mana value 2 or less from your graveyard to the battlefield".
 
LadyMapi

LadyMapi

Something I literally just noticed: both Emptiness and Isilu, Carrier of Twilight use -1/-1 counters. I wonder if that means we're going to get a -1/-1 counter set (like OG Shadowmoor) or if they're going to do the Duskmourn thing where part of the set uses -1/-1 counters and another part uses +1/+1 counters.
 
ravnic

ravnic

I would love -1/-1 counters to return. I am much more hyped for the Shadowmoor side anyway, because hybrid/color matters > tribal. I cube 3+7 (core/occasionals) cards from Lorwyn and Morningtide but a whopping 17+26 cards from Shadowmoor and Eventide. It's my favorite plane next to ravnica and arguably the most influencial sets for my CCC.
 
Seeker

Seeker

Given that the last time they returned in a Standard set* we got the aforementioned Patched Plaything - an excellent design with a lot of cool synergies, despite being a really simple card - I hope that they're easing up on their "literally never in sets with +1/+1 counters" rule for good to let them use little a counters, as a treat, when the card is good.

of course this is the same blind and purehearted faith that had me being like "surely all this universes beyond stuff won't be that bad" so, you know, grain of salt

also seconding that I'm stoked as hell for hybrids

*the time before that was, and I bet you didn't realize it's been this long, Ifnir Deadlands et al in 2017. (sure, you remember The Scorpion God or Obelisk Spider or whatever. but like. we're how old?!)
 
TrainmasterGT

TrainmasterGT

alvoi

alvoi

I think they mainly don't want too many different counters in commons and uncommons because "normal people" use dice to mean both +1/+1 counters and -1/-1 counters, so it's hard to distinguish them if both types are present. But on a random mythic card it's fine (or again, on a common that specifically tells you to put the counters on itself)
 
Ecophagy

Ecophagy

alvoi said:
I think they mainly don't want too many different counters in commons and uncommons because "normal people" use dice to mean both +1/+1 counters and -1/-1 counters, so it's hard to distinguish them if both types are present. But on a random mythic card it's fine (or again, on a common that specifically tells you to put the counters on itself)
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This is probably the main reason, but also the counters annihilate each other (unless the creature dies at the same time?), which I think can be confusing to players and makes it hard to make them both a theme if they keep cancelling each other out.
 
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